May 2012

Friday May 18th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It is a nice warm mostly sunny day outside today with a bit of wind blowing. That looks like the template for tomorrow too. We are expecting mid-80s for Saturday and a 15-20mph wind that could gust to 25. The forecast models show a really slight chance of some rain in the afternoon, but that is mostly for areas to our south.

Sunday looks a little more dicey. The forecast at the moment is for a minor chance of rain in the morning, with chances getting up to 70% in the afternoon. They are expecting showers and thunderstorms, and a chance that they could be strong.The latest trend has been to push the timing of it back a little, so we could end up with a decent Sunday too.

It will be a nice weekend for time around the campfire or camping. Low temperatures are expected to be in the mid to upper 50s tonight and around 60 Saturday night. Sky cover is forecast to be mostly clear tonight and partly cloudy Saturday night. I am a little skeptical about Saturday night’s partly cloudy, but that depends on how fast the system for Sunday starts moving cloud cover in. There is a chance that we could see some northern lights both nights, but it isn’t much of a CME.

The fire danger will be high this weekend. At the moment we have warm temps, strong winds and low humidity. Between that and the lack of rain this week, use caution with your fire.

The great outdoors is embracing Spring with great enthusiasm now. The world of green is really filling in and growing quickly. Every day I see more growth, a new flower, bug or critter, and just an explosion of growth in general. That also means that we are getting into the Repel season. So far the biggest pest in my travels have been wood ticks, but I am sure that the gators (mosquitoes) will be out soon too.

People that travel to the area from the south will want to know about the construction project on the big bridge on I43 in Green Bay. That starts Monday and they will have it down to one lane and some nearby ramps closed through the summer. Here is a link to the news feature on it. There is other construction pending too, again here is a link to news on that.

Well it is time for me to go and jump into the day. I have a computer call, and then I am headed for some time with the lawn mower. I got about half of the yard cut last week, and now it all needs cutting again.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

/RJB

Tuesday May 15th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It was quite a weekend last weekend. The weather came out better than predicted, and there were a lot of people around to enjoy it.

The river didn’t get as high as I had expected, but again a lot of people came and had a lot of fun. There were plenty of spills and wipeouts, and everyone had a blast.

Saturday night brought the birthday club party and a live band to Curve Inn. The No Schtick Band was impressive, and hopefully they play around here again soon.

Chris commented Friday on how different the place looked since last weekend with everything greening up so fast. The green explosion is under way. It is getting hard to see very far into the woods now, and the trees are really starting to fill in. The trillium are getting common now, and a lot of places look like someone littered the forest floor there are so many. There are a lot of other new flowers coming in too, and the ferns are starting to unwrap from their fiddleheads.

The prediction of last weekend being my first weekend with Repel fell a little short. I maybe encountered a half dozen ticks in my travels, and NO mosquitoes. No complaints here. I did see a lot of different moths and butterflies, and the windshield on the truck is loading up with them. I heard one person mention some pesky back flies, but I haven’t seen them.

Speaking of moths, the one pictured last week from my front screen was there Thursday night and stayed until Saturday night. She managed to attract no less than three suitors Saturday night, and apparently left by Sunday morning. She was ID’d as a popple spinx moth.

We had a cold front go through today, but it didn’t bring much for rain. There were a few showers on radar this morning, and so far it looks like the afternoon waves will be to our south. It is expected to take our temps down into the upper 30s tonight, and drop today’s current temp of 84 to tomorrow and Thursday’s highs of around 70.

There is a late week storm to keep an eye on. It is currently progged to hit Thursday and Friday, leaving us a decent weekend. That sounds good, but the models have been struggling a little with storm timing the past few weeks, so I wouldn’t carve that in stone just yet.

As far as events the only thing that I know about is a fundraiser tomorrow at Country Inn (High Falls Rd & Newton Lake Rd) for the folks that stock High Falls Flowage with walleyes. It starts at 5:30 and a $7 ticket gets you a fish fry and an entry for door prizes including a two night stay at a cabin on Noquebay or a day of pontoon boat rental.

Next weekend (5-27) there is the McCaslin Lioness Faire in Lakewood, and the local Legion Club Memorial Day Service and picnic at the Silver Cliff Memorial Picnic Grounds. Note that both events are on a Sunday. Being Memorial Day weekend there will probably be additions to that list.

Last week I managed to get about half of my grass cut before running out of time, gas, and daylight. That half needs it again and the half that didn’t get cut is pretty shaggy. It is time for folks with weekend cabins to bring to mower along.

That is about news for today. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday May 11th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It is a pretty nice day outside today. It is partly cloudy and about 75, with a little bit of wind.

The weekend weather looks pretty good too. We have a fast moving cold front that will come through later tonight with a (50%) chance of showers and T-storms. The guess is that it will come about sunset and be gone quickly. The HPC has the front here about 7pm, and over Milwaukee and Chicago by 1am.

Behind that we are expecting high pressure, which means clear weather. Saturday I am looking for clearing skies and about 65 for a high with a little wind. Sunday looks 5-10 degrees warmer and maybe a little sunnier.

Clear skies behind cold fronts make for cold nights, and that it the scoop this weekend. Saturday night’s low could go into the upper 30s.

Those same clear skies make for some good sky gazing. We have amazing stars around here on dark nights. The moon rises late Saturday night (1:17am) and is waning at 62%. Between sunset and midnight there should be good stars.

Also of interest, there is a major sunspot pointed directly at earth. From today’s Spaceweather.com update..

NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-class solar flares and a 20% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. Any eruptions are likely to be geoeffective because the source, sunspot AR1476, is directly facing our planet.

In other words, there is a pretty decent chance of some northern lights over the weekend, and skies clear enough to see them if they do happen.

The rain this week had a lot of effects. It definitely helped the plant world with the Spring growth. It also seemed to favor the insect world.  I have been seeing a lot of moths and butterflies, and other insects in the past few days. I haven’t needed Repel yet, but this could be the first weekend.

The rain was also good for the whitewater rafting. The rivers didn’t get as high as I had guessed, but it will still be good for the weekend. The Peshtigo peaked at about +5 Thursday and will be about +2 to +3 for the weekend. That is still well into the fun zone, so I wouldn’t hesitate to take Kosir’s up on the free rafting trip for Moms with a paid person. The Menominee River is still rockin’ too, with good water in the 2,000 to 2,500 range. Yeeha.

Don’t forget that they offer flat water tubing on the Peshtigo and kayak rentals on Caldron Falls flowage. Those are fun too.

I am expecting decent fishing this weekend. The moon phase and high pressure aren’t ideal, but there have been a lot of bug hatches. That should help things.

I have a couple of events for this weekend. Chris’ calendar has the following..

Tiger Chase 5K Run/Walk
Sponsored by the Gillett PTO – Proceeds to benefit the Gillett School District students
Visit our Website for Details

There is also a live band down at Curve Inn Saturday night. They have a birthday club with a party for all of the people with birthdays that month, and May’s party comes with a live band. The bands at Curve are usually pretty good.

I am sure that there are other events, but I am not aware of them. I had pretty limited travels this week.

For taking Mom out to dinner on Sunday I would start at Peshtigo River Resort or Hilltop Resort. Both have Mother’s Day dinner specials. For someplace different you might try Whispering Pine Lodge by White Potato Lake. The cabins are very nice and the gardens are beautiful.

I was in a hurry on my last update and never posted pictures. Here are a couple..

That is about it for our visit today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

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Wednesday May 9th, 2012

(Written Tuesday night, posted Wed Am)

Greetings and welcome!

I am running a little late today, my apologies.

It looks like I blew the forecast for last Saturday pretty bad. The models showed rain coming in at about 9-10am and staying through the day. We ended up getting a little wet on either side of a pretty nice day.

The clouds from Saturday night’s storm hampered our ‘Super Moon’ a little. We didn’t get the big giant clear moon rising off of the horizon as was hoped. It was still big and bad enough to shine through the clouds a little. There was also some confusion on the moonrise time. My solunar tables said that sunset and moon rise were 8:11 and 8:13. The TV news had moonrise close to 11pm, and it happened somewhere in the middle according to Chris.

Anyway we ended up with a pretty nice Saturday. Chris and I took a ride to a couple of parks and waterfalls, and there were a lot of people around. Some were fishing, some were boating, some were just enjoying the day.

Along the way I saw the first trillium of the year, the marsh marigolds are up and in bloom, and more than a few other wildflowers are starting up. I also spotted my first fern fiddle heads sprouting up. I saw today that the trillium are now much more abundant, and they should be common by the weekend.

Also new this week are the chippies. The chipmunks are pretty common around here, but I just saw my first couple of the year over the weekend. Other sightings included the deer, bear, squirrels, and a lot of different birds. There was a picture perfect family of geese down by the boat landing the other day, with Mom & Pop and a gaggle of little fuzzballs in between.

The grass needs cutting pretty badly now. It is definitely time. I tried today but the hit and miss rain cancelled that plan. The day progressed and it became more hit than miss, and we ended up with a lot of rain for the day. Based on the puddles and runoff alone I’d call it close to an inch.

It has been a rainy week or so. We have gotten a lot of water and a lot of it was nice soaking rains without a lot of runoff. Today’s rain had breaks between the waves, but there was definitely runoff and puddles mid-day when I went to town, and the rain got heavier later in the day.

With all of the rain that we have seen recently the whitewater rafting this weekend will be very fun. The Peshtigo has come up about 6″ to about +5, and the graph is going up. We are definitely in the fun zone, and there is more to come. Weekday trips this week will see a spunky river, it gets pushy and feisty when it is rising fast like this. Weekend paddlers will probably time out just in time for the peak flow. A wild guess would be +8 to +12 for Saturday morning.

The Menominee River will be prime this weekend too. That one is running at about 3,000cfs and like the Peshtigo, it is on the rise. The watershed for that river saw some heavy rain bands, so I would expect big water for the weekend. The Menominee gets really big and bold at about 3,000 and beyond, and is a Grade A adrenaline rush. It should be a good ride this weekend.

This weekend is Mother’s Day weekend. It is a tradition at Kosir’s that Mom gets to raft free on Mother’s Day. Now they have extended that to Friday-Sunday of this weekend. All weekend Moms get a free raft trip with a paid trip. They will even set her up with a wetsuit and booties at no charge.

MOTHERS’ DAY MADNESS!

Take Your Mom out(side) for Mothers Day!

Moms Raft Free !**

May 11th – 13th, 2012

** When accompanied by a full paid rafter.

*Price includes wet suit & booties!

For taking Mom out to dinner I would start at Peshtigo River Resort or Hilltop Resort. Both have Mother’s Day dinner specials. For someplace different you might try Whispering Pine Lodge by White Potato Lake. The cabins are very nice and the gardens are beautiful.

A hat tip to Dan Sanchez for his comment on the power line project.People WILL want to know about this.

Dan Sanchez says:

May 4, 2012 at 8:00 pm

We own property in Pound and received a notice in the mail this week from American Transmission Company regarding some new utility lines that will be going through Marinette county. They have several public meetings that are scheduled, in the next few weeks. Is there a thread somewhere on the site where people are discussing the proposed route and private land that the new wires are going to intersect? I feel like this is a major project that will affect many land and home owners in Marinette county and should have some public discussion.

http://www.atc-projects.com/BayLakeProject.shtml
Click Northern Wisconsin, Bay Lake Project. A semi detail PDF map is included.

I looked into it and a lot of the possible corridors for the power lines land between Hwy 141 and the western boundary of Marinette Co, and from Athelstane south to 64. Take a look at this map (PDF).

There is a local meeting about it Wed May 16th from 1-7 at Shaffer’s Park Resort near Crivitz.

That’s news for today, be back soon! Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB